Dex Media said to be planning bankruptcy filing in December

Dex Media is completing a deal with creditors that would put the company into Chapter 11 proceedings in December, the company’s third trip to bankruptcy court in less than seven years, according to two people with knowledge of the matter.

The telephone listings company, which has $2.3 billion of debt, is finalizing the pre-packaged bankruptcy plan with a group of its senior lenders, said the people, who asked not to be named because the talks are private. It plans to solicit support from a wider group of lenders before filing, with a target of the second week of December, they said.

Dex has been negotiating a debt reorganization with holders of more than $2 billion of loans since at least Sept. 30. The company, based at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport, said earlier this month that it received a proposal from the lender group. Separately, it’s been wrangling with a group of junior bondholders that have considered putting the media company into involuntary bankruptcy after it skipped a Sept. 30 interest payment.

Suzanne Keen, a spokeswoman for Dex, didn’t immediately respond to phone and e-mail messages seeking comment. Ari Cohen, a spokesman for Moelis & Co., an investment bank representing the company along with Alvarez & Marsal, declined to comment.

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The two businesses that formed Dex Media previously went through their own bankruptcies. R.H. Donnelley filed for Chapter 11 in May 2009, emerging in 2010 as Dex One Corp., based in North Carolina, with $2.6 billion in debt. Dex One then decided to combine with SuperMedia, another company that emerged from bankruptcy, in August 2012. SuperMedia was formerly known as Idearc Media, the Yellow Pages unit spun out of Verizon Communications in 2006.

The combined company filed again in March 2013 to complete the merger through a pre-packaged bankruptcy.